Memories Golden in the Sun
by mari4212
Summary: We are all shaped by what we remember.  What memories have formed Sam's life?


**Title: **Memories Golden in the Sun

**Author: **Margaret

**Disclaimer: **Supernatural and all associated characters belong to Kripke. Unfortunately, I am not he, I'm simply playing in his sandbox.

* * *

Sam has had a lot of first memories in his life.

What he thinks is his first memory, period, is also his first memory of his brother. He thinks that his life has always revolved around Dean, and mentally points to this memory as proof.

He was still little, small enough then that the motel beds looked tall, and Dean was kneeling beside one of them, a few feet away from him, arms outstretched. And he remembers focusing hard on making his legs work right, and those few teetering steps over to where his brother was waiting for him, then falling against his brother's knees and getting hugged tightly, a soft, high whisper of, "good job, Sammy," in his ear.

He told Dean about it, during one of the insanely long days in the car after Stanford.

Dean had gone quiet for a moment, then looked away and muttered, "Dude, you remembered the first time you walked? You were one, man," and then proceeded to spend the rest of the week talking about other memories Sam could have had from that time, including, "that huge-ass stinkbomb of a diaper that you pulled one night. I bet the motel had to call in for a full-on salt and burn of that room after we left. No way were they getting rid of that stink with anything less. Believe me, Dad and I tried everything short of it that night."

Sam has a few other memories of Dean from around that time. And he sometimes thinks it says a lot that he's got such clear memories of Dean, but nothing with Dad in them until he was older, even when Dean said he was in the room during the things Sam remembers.

His first real memory of his father is actually one of his favorite memories of the man. He thinks he was about three at the time, and both he and Dean were sick with something and staying in bed. Their father was sitting in the bed between them, one hand cupping the side of Sam's face idly, and reading them a book to distract them from how miserable they both felt.

His first memory of his father is of being warm, safe, and comforted. Even when he's the most furious with the man, when he doesn't want anything to do with him and his mission, he remembers that, remembers the father that was more than just a drill sergeant and commander. He thinks he's more jealous of Dean for having memories of their dad before their mother's death than he is of Dean having memories of their mother period. It's hard to miss what you've never really had, but he had just enough memories of what his father could be to wish he'd known him as he was before everything changed.

Speaking of Mom, he has a first time memory about her too. Only, it was the first time he realized that not having a mother was something that made him different from the other kids around. His first grade art class, he was supposed to make something for Mother's Day. He kept asking why he had to make something, and they eventually had to call his brother out of his English class to explain to his teacher that Sammy wasn't being stubborn for no reason, it was just that their mother had died when he was little and he didn't have anyone to give a Mother's Day present _to_ in the first place

Sam had hated the way the teacher looked at him then, all dripping with false sympathy, and promptly decided that he was going to make the present anyway and give it to Dean. Which was how his eleven-year-old brother had ended up with a Popsicle stick picture frame covered in glitter and the words "To the Best Brother Ever" written in rather shaky capital letters. Dad had busted a gut, laughing at Dean's disgusted expression when Sam gave it to him. And somehow it still ended up traveling with them for several years, till all of the glitter had fallen off and the frame broke in two.

Occasionally, Sam brings up that gift, just to see the look on Dean's face. He always starts out sneering at the idea of getting a retrofitted mother's day present. But it never fails that for an hour or so after he finishes dissing it, Dean'll smile more, be more relaxed and cheerful. Sam knows his brother doesn't know how to deal when it comes to getting simple appreciation and respect, but that doesn't mean he doesn't need it, or enjoy it when he gets it.

Sam knows that Dad and Dean shielded him from hunting when he was little. They didn't tell him what they were facing until he was almost eight. Or, as Dean put it sometimes, "until we could trust you to keep your yap shut around the nearest adults."

They sat him down, Dad and Dean together, and explained what had happened to Mom. Not just the fire, but everything else as well. And then they explained just what it was that Dad did when he went away in the night, or over the weekend.

To this day, Dean doesn't know why Sam had ripped himself out of their arms, why he ran out of their motel room in tears. Dad was the one who came after him then, who followed him down to the creek out behind the building. And it was Dad who told him no when he asked if it was all his fault that Mom had died, since whatever it was had attacked her in his nursery. It was Dad who dried his tears then, and told him that there was no way he could have caused any of it as a baby.

Dean didn't ever learn what had made him react that way, but he was the one who finished comforting him when he gave his little brother his half of the candy bar that they'd agreed to split earlier.

Sam starts thinking about that memory again, after Fitchberg and Dean's story about the Shtriga. And at the next gas station, while he's in paying for the gas with another forged credit card, he grabs a Snickers bar for Dean. His brother might not understand the fifteen-years-due thank you, but Sam needed to do it anyway.

After that, the firsts start blending together into the backdrop of his life, first kisses with a girl who was just as bad at it as he was, and first driving lessons from his brother in the parking lot of a dying shopping mall. That first hunt with the shotgun slick from his sweaty hands. First argument with his father where he didn't back down, first beer, the first time he had sex. The first time he left his family's life behind him.

The first time he met Jessica doesn't fade, anymore than the other big firsts have. His roommate was a giant goofball from Texas who took Sam under his wing from day one. Three months into their first semester there, Jay started dragging him out to the parties, telling him that he couldn't spend their entire school career buried under his textbooks.

By the third party, Sam started relaxing, even occasionally going out on the dance floors. And midway through the night the deejay stuck a few slow-dancing songs into the mix. He'd had just enough to drink that he didn't just head back to the table, but wrapped his arms around the closest unattached girl still on the floor. She shook her hair out of her face and returned the favor. By the time the song finished, he was halfway in love. By the time the night was over, he'd gotten her to go out with him. Dean wasn't the only Winchester capable of charming women when he wanted to, after all. And Jess Moore was a woman he definitely wanted to charm.

The first birthday Sam celebrated away from Dean was the hardest. Dean had always made his birthdays special, even if it was just an extra Twinkie and a chokehold pretending to be a hug.

He'd prepared for Dean's birthday by bribing a senior to pick up a six-pack of beer and asking his roommate to go visit his girlfriend's room for that night. He'd still expected Dean to show up then, bold and brash and larger than life. They always celebrated their birthdays with each other. He'd even cut out early from Jess's party for it.

Dean never showed up. No message, no phone call, no brother. He didn't even send a response to Sam's birthday card, the one he sent to their family's main post office drop box.

So Sam wasn't planning for him to show up at his nineteenth. He refused the big party his friends wanted to pull, with the excuse that it was finals week and the other people on their floor would kill them if they got too rowdy. They all took him out to dinner, instead, which was slightly saner, and let him get back to his room at a reasonable hour.

He stayed up late anyway, waiting by the window, half expecting to see the Impala's sleek form round the corner, or his brother's cocky figure silhouetted against the moonlight. He only gave up watching at three in the morning when he remembered that he had an exam at eight thirty and he hadn't gotten any sleep yet.

A little after Lawrence, Sam asked about the birthday card he'd sent. He got halfway through telling Dean about where he'd sent it before Dean pulled a U-turn. Turned out he and Dad had stopped checking that PO box a few months before Sam sent the card, because it was too out of the way for them. But nothing was going to stop him from reading the birthday card Sam had sent him.

Sam decided not to mention the other twenty-odd letters he'd written to them that first year, before he'd given up on getting a response. Dean would see them soon enough, anyway.

The last big first was the one that still sent him screaming out of nightmares. The first time he'd had visions, the first time he lost someone he loved. Jessica, in pain, and the sweet taste of her cookies still in his mouth. The fire and the blood hot against his forehead, the shock, and the anguish. Her face twisted in agony, mouthing words he couldn't understand. And Dean charging through fire to save him.

The only thing that kept him sane waking up from that memory was Dean's constant presence. Surprising how after four years apart, they came back together so easily, so effortlessly.

Or maybe it wasn't all that surprising. After all, Dean had been the center of his world for Sam's entire life. Somehow it just made sense that they still fit with each other. They were Winchesters, they were brothers, and they were Sam and Dean. Together through all of it.


End file.
